OUR MISSION
Strengthening National Security
Our Mission
LLNL’s mission has broadened in recent years, as dangers ranging from nuclear proliferation and terrorism to cyber-attacks and climate change increasingly threaten national security and global stability.


Mission Areas
By splitting our broad and evolving mission into four areas relevant to the current and future stability of our world, we’re better able to address issues of nuclear deterrence, threat preparedness and response, climate and energy security and multi-domain deterrence. In all four areas of our central mission, we count on our talented workforce to think bigger. Through their exceptional work in preeminent areas of science, the Lab’s influence doesn’t stop at our country’s borders — our innovations make the world a better place to live.
Mission Focus Areas
Today’s most pressing challenges require broad-ranging solutions with immediate impact. As subsets of the Laboratory’s Mission Areas, Mission Focus Areas (MFAs) are cross-cutting and institutional in nature, combining established science and technology (S&T) expertise and our ability to perform decision-driven analysis to inform policy. By putting our capabilities and experts at the core of our approach, MFAs help advance LLNL’s mission by accelerating credible solutions for national security and global stability.

Mission Structure
Our mission is to enable U.S. security and global stability and resilience by empowering multidisciplinary teams to pursue bold and innovative science and technology.

Our Current Mission Areas & Focus Areas
Develop and apply the S&T needed to assure the safety, security and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear stockpile in an ever-changing threat environment and enable the modernization and transformation of the NNSA production enterprise. Key operations include:
- Annual assessment
- Stockpile modernization
- Advanced science and technology
- NNSA enterprise agility and resilience
Mission Focus Area: Stockpile and Enterprise Transformation
Accelerates the advancement of the sophisticated enterprise of laboratories, facilities and people ensuring confidence in the nation’s nuclear deterrent.
Provide unique capabilities and innovative solutions to stem proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, understand capabilities and anticipate adversarial actions and support response and consequence mitigation of natural and man-made biologic threats. Key operations include:
- Nuclear counterproliferation and counterterrorism
- Pandemic response tools and biosecurity
- Forensic science
- All-source intelligence
Mission Focus Area: Bio Resilience
A future-looking initiative to counter natural and man-made biological threats by leveraging LLNL’s unique competencies in high-performance computing, advanced biotechnology and bioengineering.
Advance understanding of the global climate system, develop technologies to reduce accumulation of greenhouse gases and pursue the domestic production and supply of affordable clean energy delivered across a secure and sustainable infrastructure. Key operations include:
- High-fidelity climate impact assessments
- Reliable, secure, low-carbon energy
- Infrastructure sustainability
- Advanced materials and manufacturing
Mission Focus Area: Climate Impacts and Resilience
Couples capabilities in material science, carbon cycle and subsurface research and climate simulation to mitigate greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and predict climate impacts at scale.
The Laboratory creates a global strategic advantage through innovative technologies, strategies and analysis to bolster escalation and defensive capabilities across the full spectrum of domains including strategic defense, conventional strike, space and cyber and technology competition. Key operations include:
- Emerging technology R&D and assessments
- Strategic defense and conventional strike
- Space/cyber security
- Cognitive simulation/artificial intelligence
Mission Focus Area: Integrated Deterrence and Technology Competition
Requires working across domains, the spectrum of conflict and all instruments of U.S. national power, to reduce competitors’ perceptions of the net benefit of aggression relative to restraint.
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